Option 1: Our Relationship with Stress
The purpose of this written assignment is to engage in self-reflection to identify your stress level, what circumstances typically cause you stress, how you respond to stressors, and the ways in which you cope through stress, including healthy ways and less healthy ways. In this self-reflection, you will also identify your predominate communication style when stressed and the factors you regularly employ that cultivate your resilience.
Step 1: If you have not already done so, please watch the following video lecture that addresses cumulative stress and its correlates, including communication patterns when stressed. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yeBrG0QbZE (38:45).
Step 2: Stress is associated with cognitive errors that impact our thinking, behaving, and feeling. When stressed, our thinking tends to be vulnerable to cognitive errors, and many of us have our “go-to” cognitive errors. Examples of cognitive errors commonly employed when stressed are as follows:
Jumping to conclusions that are unfounded and unhelpful.
Engaging in mindreading (such as, “They did this because….”) When we apply our own reasoning to another’s behavior, we form conclusions based on potentially inaccurate information.
Catastrophizing, which shifts our thinking toward the “worst-case” scenario as if it were occurring or most likely to occur.
Blaming ourselves or others.
Overgeneralizing by applying what occurred in one situation to other situations.
Experiencing intensified emotional reactions that transfer from situation to situation, which tend to increase feelings of being overwhelmed or irritable.
Step 3: When stressed, we tend to have certain ways we prefer to process the stress. For a review, “communication patterns when stressed” is discussed in the above video lecture (from Step 1) starting at 29:45.
Step 4: Building resiliency to work through stress is associated with self-care, which involves healthy sleeping patterns (practicing sleep hygiene); consistent exercise; nutritious eating; healthy support systems; self-expression in ways meaningful to us; and spiritual or religious practices, mindfulness, meditation, grounding, community service, time in nature, and/or other experiences in which we find purpose and meaning.
Step 5: In at least four paragraphs, thoughtfully answer the following prompts:
Identify and explain your main stressors.
Discuss any cognitive errors you believe impact you during times of stress and how they influence your thinking process.
Identify and explain your predominate communication pattern when stressed (realizing that communication patterns are fluid and dynamic, though we do tend to have our own leanings).
Explain the ways in which you engage in self-care that increases your resilience in working through stressors. If you do not tend to engage in self-care, identify and discuss one thing you are willing to start, stop, or change that might increase your resilience against stress.
Step 6: Review the Lab Rubric, which explains the expectations for this writing assignment.
Step 7: Compile your responses to Step 5 into one document for submission to the drop box located below.